


like a bullet in the back

by ygrittebardots



Series: the gathering fire [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Canon, F/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 17:07:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3389570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ygrittebardots/pseuds/ygrittebardots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anakin has no patience for the subtleties of politics, nor the rhetoric of the Jedi. But he might have patience for Padmé.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like a bullet in the back

The instant the Chancellor calls for a recess, Anakin turns on his heel and marches out of the delegation pod. He doesn’t wait for the others - they’ll catch up eventually, and he doesn’t particularly feel like talking to anyone right now. Fortunately, they know that, and what’s more, he _knows_ they know that, and is very grateful indeed that no one attempts to catch him on his way out. 

The nerve. The fucking _nerve_ of that man. Clovis may have done the impossible in managing to get both the Loyalist Committee _and_ the Trade Federation eating out of the palm of his hand, but he’d quite honestly sooner feed himself to a kriffing sarlacc than allow the Banking Clan to set up shop on Tatooine. 

Anakin’s been against the war since the start, has fought with everything he’s got to keep it off and well away from Tatooine. This isn’t what his people chose to join the Republic for. They’ve bled enough. And they will never pay the taxation that turns into the blood money being spent to wage this war, not while he has breath in his lungs and a voice to fight against it. And for Clovis to stand there and suggest certain senators were standing in the way of their system’s interests for their own gain… for Clovis to _dare_ catch his eye as he said it… Well, suffice to say Anakin is only peripherally aware of the nails of his flesh hand digging little half-moons into the meat of his palm.

“Do you think you could project your thoughts just a little louder? It’d save me a trip back to the Temple to deliver my session report.”

At twenty-one years old, Anakin likes to think that by now he’s fairly good at not looking like an idiot. Normally he’s right. But not where Padmé Naberrie’s concerned.

He’s not sure what’s worse - his complete inability to stop himself from tripping over his own feet despite reflexes that’ve never failed him, or the fact that Padmé barely bats an eye as he stumbles to regain balance. Arms crossed over her chest, Anakin’s not sure anyone in the history of the galaxy’s ever managed to look quite so radiant leaning against a pillar. Anger all but forgotten, he runs a nervous durasteel hand through his hair.

“Padmé,” he says, and grins, because really who wouldn’t? “What brings you to the Senate?”

“Session report for the Council,” she says again smoothly, and Anakin wants to kick himself. “And, actually, you.”

“Me?"

Padmé frowns, and shifts her weight slightly off the pillar she’d been leaning against. “Haven’t you been debriefed?”

“On…?” he asks, completely lost.

“I’m accompanying you back to Tatooine. You _are_ still going?”

Anakin can only nod.

“Right,” she says, smiling again, “well the Chancellor expressed some concern over your difficulties with the Banking Clan, so I’ll meet you at the docking bay after the Senate breaks for the day. Really, I thought you’d been told.”

“Hang on,” he says, backtracking quickly through his mind over her words. “What’s Clovis got to do with my trip home?”

He’s not sure if the look she fixes him with is meant to be conspiratorial or simply calling him out - though on what, he’s got no idea. “Senator,” she says, “why does the Council ever throw me together with you?”

“Usually because some sleemo’s been paid off to take me hostage - ”

“And, given your track record, I think the Council’s decided they’d rather have me with you to prevent a hostile situation, should it arise, rather than pull me out of another mission to run S&R later on. You don’t really keep a low profile, Senator.”

It’s all he can do to keep from rolling his eyes. It’s the Jedi Council and the Chancellor in his fancy gilded office who deserve his annoyance, not Padmé. She’s just following orders. She knows what it’s like on the ground. “I’m more than capable of taking care of myself,” he tells her, and it’s not bravado. It’s fact.

“I’m sure the Council is aware. However, they’d feel better if you had me with you.”

“Is the Council also aware that I’ve been fighting off would-be assassins since I was fourteen?”

“Senator Skywalker…” she says, stepping forward, and then hesitates, as though searching for the right words. 

It’s moments like these that Anakin truly appreciates the subtleties and collection of contradictions that make up Padmé Naberrie. Usually he thinks of her as a woman not to be trifled with, confident and straightforward, filled with an easy grace, always questioning, always moving. But now she’s so close to him he can see the uncertainty, the need for tact in the delicate flick of eyelash, the small twitch at the corner of her mouth. And then - 

“Sometimes we must let go of our pride and do what is requested of us.”

And Anakin’s smile grows tight on his face. 

Because of all the truths he knows in this galaxy, this is the one she never had to tell him. This is the truth he was born to, the one so deeply entrenched in his bones that he would stay up some nights out of sheer terror that even should his mad bid for a free Tatooine ever come to something, he, at the end of the day, simply wouldn’t know _how._ But in the end, his fears had been for nothing, and Anakin Skywalker does not apologise now for his pride. Not to anyone.

“Not anymore,” he says, and realises it sounds more like a snarl.

Padmé, however, remains unflustered. She does not step away. She does not apologise. What she does instead is take one step closer and calmly say, “I said requested, senator. Not ordered. You’re perfectly within your rights to refuse the Council’s mandate.” And then she breaks into a grin. “Of course, _I_ thought you might be pleased to have me around. Guess I was wrong.”

She shrugs, and, much more gracefully than Anakin had just managed, turns on her heel and begins to walk away. 

“Wait!” he calls after her, and Padmé turns, one eyebrow raised questioningly.

He breathes in deeply, and then breaks into a grin to match hers.

“If you’re coming with me,” he says, “you’re going to have to start calling me Anakin.”


End file.
